at first, that is. Dan, a newly published bestselling author has just begun to taste the good life: Money in the bank, house in a quiet neighborhood, beautiful wife. His monster of a fictional character--a wealthy, handsome, womanizing murderer--is the catalyst for Dan's good fortune, intriguing millions of readers. But when Dan sleeps with his agent on a business trip, and then confesses the whole thing to his wife in near tears, he sets off a chain of events that cause him to lose his wife and his grip on everything, including reality.Fleeing his hometown in an attempt to outrun tormenting memories, Dan lands himself in a nearly forgotten small town in Oklahoma, taking up indefinite refuge in a Bed and Breakfast. While here, Dan's demons begin to prey on his mental instability, and the character that he's thrilled his readers with begins to come off the page and out into the flesh, sending shockwaves through the otherwise peaceful town, and giving Dan some interesting and horrific ideas on how to cope with his pain.

    A chilling tale consumed in under an hour, but not so quickly digested.She had secretly wanted the baby to die, but Fate never sided with her until twenty-three years later, when Destiny Childs got her wish.Broken, middle-aged Destiny daily struggles to survive her haunting past. Dead parents. Unplanned teen pregnancy. Cyclic addiction and depression. Life hasn't treated her kindly. Then one day she sees the name of her castaway daughter on the news: a victim of murder.Seeing this as an opportunity to extort the rich family her daughter left behind, Destiny crafts a plan. But as all her plans go, it loosens a mess of secrets long buried, along with the truth behind the killing.In this haunting murder mystery short story, discover the gruesomely intimate stranger harbored within Destiny... and who may lurk within any one of us."The Scream of Silence" originally appeared in Reader's Circle of Avenue Park's "Crooked Tales" anthology but is now published for the first time as a standalone short story.

    Its residents have secrets - or so they think. These will be exposed and their true natures revealed during an unexpected winter storm. Chaos unfolds as the snow falls, ushered along by the ghosts of the town's previous inhabitants. Acting on orders from some unknown power, it's their duty to see that the town gets the justice it has been lacking. If anyone's alive by dawn, they're either lucky - or innocent. This is Spring City's last night, but its citizens won't go quietly.

    But what she finds tests her training and sanity, for what she discovers should not exist. Winter Kill is the first book in the ongoing werewolf noir series, The Pack, by Bram Stoker Award winner Mike Oliveri. Book two, Lie with the Dead, is excerpted in this edition.

    However, after a series of brutal child killings begins in a small Texas town, the ghostly visions begin again. Jennifer, unable to understand how these visions relate to what she went through five years ago, convinces her father to take her on a road trip to Texas to find out answers. On the way she will learn that her powers go far beyond her psychic abilities. AN AMAZON TOP 50 BEST SELLER!!

     It starts when Stella, an archaeologist specializing in Anasazi culture, finds David, a young Navajo boy who stumbles onto their dig site in a remote corner of the Navajo Reservation. David's coat is smeared with blood and he's in shock from something he's seen, revealing nothing but his name. Soon Stella and the other archaeologists will discover that something is chasing David, an unimaginable ancient evil that will stop at nothing to get him. After Stella escapes the dig site with David, driving north into Colorado, right into a blizzard, she's carjacked by a gang of criminals fleeing a botched bank robbery. All of them take refuge from the snowstorm in what they believe is an abandoned cabin. But after they find the owner's mutilated body stuffed into a freezer, they realize that something is out there in the blizzard waiting for them. The Ancient Enemy wants things . . . you have to give it what it wants or bad things will happen. Very bad things.

    She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges… a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body.My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.

    It includes lots of cursing, descriptive sex, biting sarcasm, and dark themes. HYDE was inspired by Stevenson's novella but is not a retelling, in part because he and this author have very different definitions of 'bad boy'.Honesty is impossible when you don't know the truth to begin with.Mitchell Turner is everything women want most in a man--he's charismatic, successful, and undeniably gorgeous. But he's not a man--he's a monster. By venting his rage 24/7, Mitch keeps people out of the danger zone that surrounds him. But, after the most incredible night of his life, he realizes that might not be possible. Except the woman he wakes up with claims she doesn't remember any of it. And that kind of thing can make a guy insecure.Eden Colfax is kind, loyal, honest to a fault, and cavity-inducing sweet. To rid herself of the monsters that haunted her broken childhood, Eden doesn't lie, doesn't curse, and definitely never wakes up naked in strangers' beds...until the day she does. Then the flashbacks start--places she's never been, people she's never met, blood she's never spilled. And the only person with any answers is a man she never wants to see again.What they don't know is that someone is manipulating them, determined to find out exactly what they're capable of. And when the truth leaves them nothing to hold onto, they will be forced into a partnership neither expected. Or wanted.But in life, who you trust is as important as who you are. And when you can't even trust yourself, sometimes the only person you can rely on is the last person on earth you should be falling for.